


Customer Service

by dokyun (kissthesea)



Category: History (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Convenience Store, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 20:57:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissthesea/pseuds/dokyun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just another day at work, and Dokyun's ready to quit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Customer Service

Unsurprisingly, Dokyun is the first to arrive at the store. The place isn't much, a half a dozen aisles or so of the things people need in a hurry: snack food, tiny bars of soap, toothbrushes, aerosol stain remover. They open at the crack of dawn just to try and complete with the chain stores that occupy every street, every corner, walling them in and drawing away their customers with promises of reheated soft pretzels and lottery tickets. Dokyun flips on the fluorescent lights, drops his coat in the back and gets to work.

Exactly forty-two minutes later-- and twelve minutes late, Dokyun notes with disdain-- the bell above the front door jingles and Dokyun peeks above a shelf of koala-shaped snacks to find the last person in the world he'd hoped to see today breezing past the front counter to the coffee machine in the back.

"I thought Jaeho was working today?" he calls across the aisles.

Sihyung shoots him a sleepy, bored look and shrugs. He smacks the side of the coffee machine as his cup becomes lodged in the chute. "He called me last night, something about being way too hung over."

Dokyun frowns. "He magically predicted he was going to be too hung over this morning to work?"

The machine finally looses the cup and Sihyung grins into its steaming contents. "He was pretty drunk when he called," he chuckles.

"Of course he was," Dokyun grumbles and returns to sorting candy. So many different brands, all with their colorful and unnecessarily decorated wrapping. Why in the world it's necessary to have so many kinds of candy is beyond him.

The next time he looks up, Sihyung is hovering beside him, eyes trained on Dokyun's face. Dokyun blinks and steps away, forever confused as to why Sihyung can't do anything normal, like, say, help prepare the store for opening time.

"Can I help you?" His tone is anything but friendly, but something makes Sihyung smile.

"No. You're funny, hyung." With that, he wanders towards the cash register. Not to do anything useful, but to seat himself on the stool behind the counter and flip through a stack of outdated fashion magazines.

The chocolate bar in his hand is melting in its wrapper. Dokyun seethes.

_

Technically, there isn't anything that makes Sihyung a worse coworker than, say, Jaeho or Yijung. Jaeho is just as lazy and prefers to hide behind the stacks of bottled soda reading comics to manning the cash register. Yijung, despite his small fanclub of regular customers,  tends to make terribly inappropriate jokes that send most casual customers running for the door.  No matter who's working with him, Dokyun is the one giving orders, nagging to make sure tasks get done, and, in the end, running the place by himself.

And yet it's Sihyung who gets to him, Sihyung who makes Dokyun see red and want to chuck merchandise across the store.

-

"I... I-I want..." A young girl, she can't be more than fifteen, stands at the counter and mumbles her request directly at the floor. Her cheeks are pink and she fumbles with a key chain hanging from her shoulder bag.

Dokyun leans in a little closer. "I'm sorry, could you speak up?" He says it as kindly as he can, but she withdraws further. This time when she speaks she's practically whispering to her sweater. After being ordered around and even shouted at by customers all day, Dokyun shouldn't complain, but somehow this girl is a thousand times more frustrating. He can feel his smile starting to crumble.

It's not her fault, he tells himself, it's--

"Can I be of service?" a deep voice croons and Sihyung slides up beside the girl. She squeaks and steps away, but Sihyung smiles in a way that, though Dokyun will never understand how or why, everyone seems to find instantaneously comforting. Personally, it gives Dokyun the creeps. As usual, it works, and in a matter of seconds the girl is whispering something into Sihyung's ear and he beams.

Dokyun has never met someone who looks so kind but is secretly so evil.

"Condoms?" Sihyung asks innocently in a voice that carries in the small store. Not that anyone is there, but the girl's face reddens all over again and she almost tries to run, but Sihyung hops behind the counter and grabs the box before Dokyun can even think to move out of the way. He leans across Dokyun and rings it up.

The girl blinks, pulls out her wallet and pays. As she's carrying her bag to the door Sihyung calls after her, "Never be ashamed of being responsible!" She jogs away as fast as her legs can take her.

By the time he turns around, Dokyun's face is so red the tips of his ears are burning. "What the hell was that?" he growls.

Sihyung blinks, and then, slowly, a smirk spreads across his small, perfectly shaped face. He reaches out and carefully straightens Dokyun's 'manager' tag. "Customer service, hyung."

-

By the time Dokyun is closing the shop, his shoulders are so tense he's sure something is going to snap. The sad thing is, nothing about today has been anything out of the ordinary. Tomorrow is going to be exactly the same, and the day after, and the day after that...

Dokyun sighs and pulls on his heavy winter coat. The customers bustle by without giving the shop a glance. They'd get so much more business if they were open twenty-four hours.

Then again, Dokyun isn't sure he can survive a night shift with Sihyung.

As if he can read Dokyun's mind, Sihyung jogs past and out the door. He waits for Dokyun just outside, hopping from foot to foot to keep warm. Dokyun fumbles with the heavy ring of keys before he manages to lock the front door. Turned off, the sign above the doors just looks sad. Dokyun gives Sihyung a sidelong glance before turning to leave.

"Not heading home?" he asks Dokyun's back curiously.

"Going to pick up dinner first." His voice is barely above a grumble.

Sihyung steps up and presses against Dokyun's shoulder. He leans in and his lips brush against Dokyun's cheek as a hand slides into his coat pocket, retrieiving a different set of keys. "See you at home," he whispers in Dokyun's ear, then turns in the opposite direction towards their apartment.


End file.
